Team:NCTU Formosa/Entrepreneurship

Overview

Entrepreneurship has traditionally been defined as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which typically begins as a small business, such as a startup company, offering a product, process or service for sale or hire.[1]

Today, our project, PANTIDE, has a complete idea and experience to prove its effect. First, we will introduce our business model, which includes three kinds of items, the problem, solution, and schedule, to explain why we want to choose this problem, how we solve them, and when we will launch our product. Second, we analysis the marketing and future to discuss about three items, insecticide using, organic agriculture, and technology agriculture. Next, we grasp the regulation about the manufacture and using in real world to get a certificate from government. The last but not least, we introduce the sponsors who help us in our difficult time and launch our product for others companies.

Business model

Tagline

Commingling of the technology and plants to lead the new agricultural revolution.

Problem

As we mention in our wiki, more and more people pay attention to the chemical pesticide influence our daily life. The trends of eating organic food is gradually increasing. However, the management cost and low yield are two major problems that cause the organic food expensive. There are two goals that we want to achieve:

  • To be precise agriculture
    The high management cost including human resource, time, and precise field monitor.
  • To reduce the using of chemical pesticide
    Chemical pesticide cause lots of problems:
    • Environment pollution
      According to studies, there are over four million tons of chemical pesticide being sprayed in the world. It’s not only pollute 40% river which is serious effects the water, but cause soil contamination such as pesticide residue and salinization of soil. The pollution destroys the original environment.
    • Health
      The chemical pesticide using in abundance is harm to our bodies such as lung failure, abnormal breathing, quiver, cardiopalmus, and poor appetite.
    • Loss of market
      According to Ministry of Economic Affairs, R.O.C., food safety problem has caused the loss of 17 billion new Taiwan currency.

Solution

This year, we want to combine the synthetic biology with the state-of-the-art technology. We hope drawing people’s attention to the precision agriculture which backing up the development of modern agriculture.

  • Biopesticide---PANTIDE
    • Database
      • Nowadays, many kinds of protein have been discovered about their sequence, structure, and function.
      • To integrate the reference of PANTIDE such as structure property or spice specific killing.
      • To compare with the different toxic active site in the protein sequence and be classified with its structure.
    • Synthetic biology
      • Through the synthetic biology, we transform the PANTIDE sequence, which is choose from our database, into E. coli to highly produce the toxin protein.
    • Pesticide killing
      • Using the PNATIDE, it can cause the death of specific pests with different kinds of dead function but ecofriendly and non-toxin to other animals.
    • Environmental Sustainability and health
      • To River and soil, PANTIDE comes from the mother nature and is biodegradable. Therefore, there is no pesticide residue problems.
      • To other animal, PANTIDE is spices specific which means it is non-toxic to benefit insects and don’t hurt the human body.
    • Market costs and social costs
      • PNATIDE can protect corps, biodegradable, and non-toxic to human body. We believe that this new pesticide will reduce the problem of food safety to cut the market costs and social costs.
  • Smart detector
    • The device combines the microcontroller single chip, Arduino, with detection of many situations such as the number of specific pests, temperature, and humidity level.
    • To achieve the two-way communication between the device and the application, we use the Internet of thing (IoT) talk to connect both of them and transfer the information to the users anytime and anywhere.
    • According to information and the forecast of degradation rate, users can judge the best time to spray the PNATIDE or just spray the water.

Schedule

  • Preparatory period Execut-ion period
    • Market survey
      • Public questionnaire
      • Farm visit and questionnaire
        To make sure the opinions about our Project from the potential users in the future. We went to Organic Green Market in NTHU to have an interview and did some public questionnaire. We first made a briefly introduction about our product, then asked some questions. The mean opinions we want to know from farmer were what we can develop organic agriculture. To public, we concerned about their views of PANTONE was non-toxic agricultural or not. We would continue doing questionnaire and visit farmer for inspiring us new idea.
    • Lab experiment and device design __ view more in project
      • The goal of experiment in laboratory was using E.coli to manufacturer our PANTIDE. Then, we would test carry out yield analysis and determination of peptide degradation rate. Also, we use Spodoptera litura’s larvae to experiment determination value of LC50.
    • Device design included three part
      • Insect-catching apparatus
        Combination with 2014 NCTU_FORMOSA product PBAN. We created insect-catching apparatus, which could attract specific pests. Moreover, our device PANPIPE could determine the number of pests by infrared sensors.
      • Analyzing spraying
        When Arduino microprocessor receives signals from the infrared sensors would determine when to start spraying by intersection checking.
      • Remote monitoring
        Used IoT to connect PANPIPE and APP in user phone, which could remote monitoring PANPIPE.
    • Analyzing spraying
      • Insect-catching apparatus
        Combination with 2014 NCTU_FORMOSA product PBAN. We created insect-catching apparatus, which could attract specific pests. Moreover, our device PANPIPE could determine the number of pests by infrared sensors.
  • Execution period
    • Small-scale toxicity test
      After we determine the value of LC50 in the laboratory. PANTIDE and PANPIPE would be test in the green house, which environment was controlled.
    • Equipment test
      • Equipment test and sophisticated
        In order to correct the predicted values of PANPIPE, it would be put in the field for long-term observation and record.
    • Effectiveness evaluation
      • Farm test
        At last, we would contact the farmer, which was willingness to participate in the non-toxic agricultural-PANTIDE test, for four-month field trials.

Business Model summery

Our value:

  • Previously detect the pest appearance and species. Internet of things (IoT) transfer the data to users’ application. Remove spraying the species specific PNATIDE.
  • As the precise agriculture, we tackle the problem and solve it directly.
  • Ecofriendly, nontoxic to benefit insects and human body

Marketing, Publicity and Future

In this part, we are going to discuss about the market analysis, publicity and future works.

Marketing

Our target customer focus on the pesticide using, biopesticides using, and the precision agriculture. Therefore, we concern about the market of three parts---insecticide using, organic agriculture, and technology agriculture. All of the market are increasing. It shows that our product is commercial exploitable.

  • The insecticide market
    • According to a new market research report entitled, “Insecticides Market by Type [Organophosphorus Compounds, Pyrethroids, Neonicotinoidsn Methyl Carbamate, and Others (Macrocyclic Lactones, Phenylpyrazoles, and Benzoylureas)], by Crop Type (Cereals & Grains, Oilseeds & Pulses, Fruits & Vegetables, and Others), & Geography - Global Trends and Forecasts to 2019” published by MarketsandMarkets, the insecticides market is projected to grow from a value of $13,037.5 million in 2013 to $16,436.0 million by 2019, at a CAGR of 4.7% from 2014 to 2019. North America and Asia-Pacific are expected to dominate the global insecticides market, in terms of value. [2]
  • The biopesticide market
    • BCC Research (2014), Global Markets for Biopesticides, the global markets for biopesticide is estimated to reach USD 390 million by 2019, at a CAGR of 13.9% between 2014 and 2019. [3]
    • BCC Research (2014), Global Markets for Biopesticides, the proportions of biopesticide in 2014 is 5.8% compared with pesticides and it will rise to 8.2%.[3]
  • The precision agriculture by technology market
    • According to the new market research report "Precision Farming Market by Technology, by Hardware and Software & Services, Application, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2020", the precision farming market is estimated to reach USD 4.80 Billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 11.7% between 2015 and 2020. [4]
    • According to AgTech Investing Report for 2015, it shows investment in food and agriculture technology startups reached a massive $4.6 billion in 2015, which included precision agriculture industry players who are liked by venture capital. [5]

Publicity

In addition to analysis market, we also do some survey.

  • Questionnaire investigation of the understanding organic agriculture and biopesticide to understand what kinds of product that public want to use.
  • Participation in the 2016 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition help to raise our public profile.

Future

This summer, we have achieved many kinds of basic information. However, we need to keep going to finish many

  • Concentrating of PANTIDE until the maximum lethal concentration
  • Measuring the LD50
  • Through the sonicating bacteria, we want to find the best condition for feeding larva.
  • Manufacturing the PANTIDE
    • Efficiently and Highly produce the PANTIDE
    • Standard series of the production
  • New use of old proteins
    • Using the database analysis will find out the new use of old proteins
  • Other application
    • With the same idea, using the detector to immediately monitor the mosquito to take precautions against the dengue.

Regulation

Sponsor

  • Participating the youth business plan competition held by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
  • Participating the youth business plan competition held by Fubon Cultural & Educational Foundation.
  • Through youth business plan competition, we get financial aid from Fubon Group.
  • Participating Smart Agriculture Innovation business plan to attract consulting firms.
  • Thanks for NCTU alumni association, they not only give us the financial aid but help us seek other sponsors and firms.
  • Through the NCTU alumni association, they introduce us to Phison Electronics Corporation, which is founded by outstanding NCTU alumni.
  • Thanks for Phison Electronics Corporation giving us the financial aid. Moreover, they introduce us to the China company, which is interested in precise agriculture. They will invest our product and promise that they would like to provide us a large field to test the product efficiency. This will be the milestone for us to become a company.

Reference